Page 9 - Demo

In the 80s and 90s the Test nations visiting the
UK made stopovers in the Netherlands and I have been lucky to have umpired all of them at least once. During a business trip I was in Johan- nesburg when some guys shouted ‘hey, Dutch umpire’. It was Hanse Cronjé and the SA team who recognized me (easy when you measure 6’9” !), said hello. They were on their way to Australia.
The Forty Club invited me to become a member which I gladly and proudly accepted. I had no idea that Lideke and I were going to have the op- portunity to ‘see the world’ with them. I started as a player and later as an umpire whilst Lideke was one of their regular scorers.
We enjoyed great tours to far away countries like Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Namibia. We made many friends and at the year ending we still receive a lot of Christmas cards and emails with greetings and Happy New Year messages.
I warmly recommend cricketers to join the Forty Club in the UK or SGS in the Netherlands. Cricket will bring you to beautiful countries, excellent cricket grounds and ne third innings after the matches.
On top of all this, you make friends for life.
I have been active in many committees for the KNCB, the Dutch cricket board. I have been on the board of SGS for 35 years and their president for 20 years. As token of appreciation I got quite a number of rewards which I cherish:
Honorary member of the KNCB, SGS and the Danish Forty Club.
Honorary President of SGS and Honorary Life Member of the Forty Club.
Bearer of the Golden SGS Pin (Lideke got that one too !) and the Crown Tie of the KNCB.
The Shepherd- Frindall Prize for a ‘Lifetime Achievement in Cricket’.
And last but not least a medal from Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands: Member of the ‘Order of Oranje Nassau’
I turned 84 years old in early March and I did expect my last years to be more pleasant namely attending local cricket matches, the Quadrangular Tournaments with my Danish, Spanish, English and Dutch friends. But it is di cult without Lideke, who died in December 2019 and the present virus problems. Sincerely hope better times lie ahead
of us and I can meet many of the Forty Club members again.
Duco Ohm February 2021
The Forty Club 2021 Yearbook
11
NORTHERN TOURISTS
Paul Lack (SX) on ‘County-wide’ touring.
ou can’t say our members aren’t adventurous. Whilst driving past the beautiful Bamburgh Castle in the 90s Paul Lack thought it would be a superb ground
to play on. Years later, in August 2020, Paul was watching Country le on BBC and the Bamburgh club was featured. That was it - Paul decided action was needed. He contacted Billy Wright the Bamburgh Castle CC xture secretary who kindly invited him to bring a side to play the Castle team in September 2021.
It’s taken a while to plan, but Paul is about to ful l his dream.
Having played for Surrey and West Sussex district against Rob Nelson’s Eastern Counties in the XL Inter District cup and having been amongst Eastern Counties players on the Forty Club tour to Gambia in 2019, Paul knew Eastern Counties players would be up for a challenge. He mentioned the idea of
a north east tour to Rob Nelson, who was keen, and the plan was hatched to arrange a three-match tour using players from both EC and SX districts.
After Bamburgh at the northern end of their tour, the tourists wanted another match on the way south. They contacted Colin Neill District
Chairman of Scotland and challenged him to a cross border match. Scotland had previously played the East Midlands district in Northumberland at Humshaugh CC and so a request was made to borrow their ground and subsequently a Tourists
vs Scotland xture has been arranged. The third match has yet to be arranged.
A great idea to tour another part of the country and play at picturesque grounds, could this be ground- breaking? Paul hopes so. He believes it will encour- age players from di erent regions to play matches outside their own District: and perhaps Districts would be interested in undertaking an internal tour.
This is not a new idea: North West District had a four-match tour of Scotland in 1982.
Y